1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to an inkjet image forming apparatus, and more particularly, to a print head wiper to wipe nozzles of a print head, and an inkjet image forming apparatus including the print head wiper.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, inkjet image forming apparatuses form an image on a printing medium by firing ink from a print head onto the printing medium. An inkjet image forming apparatus can be classified based on a type of the print head used in the apparatus. A shuttle type print head, as it moves back and forth in the width direction of a printing medium, fires ink onto the printing medium. An array type print head includes a plurality of nozzles arranged across the width of the printing medium. Since the array type print head forms an image an entire line at a time by selectively firing ink from its nozzles, the array type print head can print images more rapidly than the shuttle type print head.
Meanwhile, to keep optimal conditions of the ink firing from the nozzles, the inkjet image forming apparatus carries out maintenance during a standby mode. The maintenance, for example, includes spitting a small amount of ink to prevent the nozzles from clogging by dust, dirt, sticking of the ink, etc, and wiping droplets of ink around the nozzles to prevent distortion of the ink firing.
For the maintenance, a print head wiper is required. Unlike the shuttle type print head, the array type print head is fixed. Therefore, the inkjet image forming apparatus including the array type print head requires a mechanism for moving the print head wiper.